I am so pleased to welcome Champagne author Hannah Lokos to “An Author’s Desk.” Hannah will share a bit about herself, Labyrinth of Lies – her debut novel of historical fiction published by Champagne Book Group, and the story behind the book. BTW, Hannah’s the youngest guest to visit but she’ll tell you all about that. Meet Hannah …

I am a pre-med/biology college student, and as such, I have learned to write in a variety of places at a variety of times. Honestly, I can write pretty much anywhere. Sometimes, it’s my dorm room. Other times it might be the school library, a different library, Denny’s, Starbucks, the stairs, or, if I’m at home, my couch. I write whenever I have a spare chance, often as a study break from physics or organic chemistry, and often at one o’clock in the morning. Even though writing and science are both intense and intensely time consuming, I am finding that, surprisingly, different types of insanity can actually work to balance each other out. This has definitely been true in my case. The cat in the picture is Chocolate. She has been my faithful writing companion for the past twelve years. When I’m writing at home, she often tries to squeeze onto my lap with my computer.

I wrote Labyrinth of Lies when I was eighteen years old. The idea came from an art history class I was taking. I was already familiar with the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, which basically states that Crete went to war with Athens and won. The cruel king of Crete, King Minos, demanded that the defeated king of Athens, King Aegeus, sign a peace treaty stating that, every year, he would send fourteen of his nation’s youth to Crete to be fed to the Minotaur, a vicious half-man half-beast that dwelt locked in the labyrinth. The myth states that Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, eventually decided that enough was enough, so he sailed to Crete, killed the Minotaur, and freed his people. This was all very well and dandy; nothing earth-shattering. But then I learned something: it was real.

Historical evidence indicates that Theseus may have been a real person. King Aegeus was nearly certainly real; the Aegean Sea is named after him. King Minos lived also; you can still tour the ruins of his palace (and see all the frescoes on the walls) at Knossos in Crete. Crazier still, in the ruins, there was discovered to be a structure that resembled a labyrinth. This really got me thinking. We know there can’t be such a thing as a Minotaur. It just isn’t possible. Yet, everything else seems to be true. So why on earth would you need a labyrinth if there was no monster to contain? Why on earth would you kill fourteen innocent kids if there was no beast to eat them? What was truly going on all those thousands of years ago? And that is precisely what my book is about. Theseus struggles to unwind a massive web of motives and lies to discover what truly lies at the heart of that infamous maze. What happens? Well (cue maniacal laughter) you’ll just have to read it and find out!

Fun facts about me? I like needlepoint and baking, but I also enjoy paintball and geocaching. I have been stung by a jellyfish and I hate Twitter and cheese. Earlier this summer, I spent six weeks working overseas in Togo, West Africa, in a missions hospital. Now, I’m studying for the MCAT and working on my next novel. After that? We’ll see!

LABYRINTH OF LIES

Something foul is afoot in Ancient Greece. Athens is bruised from a previous war with Crete. Worse still, King Minos annually demands fourteen Athenian youths to be fed to the Cretan Minotaur locked inside a maze. When his own beloved, Zosemine, is taken to be fed to the Minotaur, Theseus finds himself at the heart of a web of conflicting motives, with the sense that even those closest to him cannot be trusted. Theseus must navigate the various plots, motives, and secrets through the labyrinth and see past the masks to slay the Minotaur